I think he met, he could do what some teams do .. mortgage the future, and go nuts in free agency and grab a 30 year old , give them a ton of money over a long period of time , leaving no cash , when it comes to signing youngsters like Cooley. Forcing him to hav3 to do buy outs , or getting rid of good players to keep in the budget ( obviously he won’t have money problems here in Utah vs ARZ
Getting Sergachev was smart, he grabbed a 26 year number 1 ( debatable) D , who can grow with our core and is signed on a good deal for a long time.
He’s trying to build through the draft so they can be good for a long time .. , not short term where they have one or two years of success and then have to rebuild again.
That’s why he focused on building up the scouting department, so you can grab BPA, and keep putting good players on top of good players.
If you look at the draft history, and take a look at the Coyotes drafts every year, and see how many players actually made the NHL or if they did, how good they became ..its very few, because the Yotes had hardly any scouts… they even had Keith Gretzky, who was hired when Wayne was the part owner. Now BA has hired scouts known for drafting high end talent , and he has them all over US, CAN, Europe, RUS, and lots of them.
I have followed this team since they were the Jets, and have never seen the drafting depth we have now.
Does that guarantee success? No, but a lot of us who criticized BA early on for getting rid of all of our mediocre players, in favour of collecting draft picks and assets, are now starting to see the big picture and the fruits of that labor.
But having said that…. As you said it is a results oriented business… and time will tell if this was the best move.. not to mention the patience level of the new fans and ownership.
If this team does not improve every year changes could be made fast, and likely will
We don’t want to be the Sabres